14 DAY TRIAL // The case of Alexander Draper, the 14-year-old boy who weighs an impressive 555 pounds, has brought a very sensitive issue up for discussion again. His mother, Jerri Gray, was arrested in June and charged with criminal neglect, but that does not stop the question from arising: is she really responsible for the state her child was found in, USA Today asks.
Gray’s attorney is telling the media that she, as a mother, did everything she could to keep Alexander’s weight under control. However, when she saw her son tipped the scales to a quarter of a ton, she asked for professional help, which is when she was detained by South Carolina authorities. Since then, the 14-year-old boy was separated from his mother and has been placed in foster care. The woman stands a trial on criminal neglect charges, but, if she’s found guilty, this could set a precedent that would further complicate matters, her legal representative explains.
“If she’s found guilty on those criminal charges, you have set a precedent that opens Pandora’s box. Where do you go next?” the defense attorney says for the aforementioned publication. However, prosecutors are adamant that Gray, and Gray alone, is responsible for the ballooning weight of her son, who now faces health issues she probably can’t even begin to understand. She should have watched his diet and weight more carefully, and made sure she provided him a balanced diet that would have prevented such problems, they say.
In light of this, it’s no wonder the case was brought to national attention, with many debating now on whether parents should be held legally liable in cases such as this one. The Child Welfare League of America provides specific figures that show that state courts in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, New Mexico, Indiana and California have all been faced with this problem in recent years, USA Today informs. Criminal charges were filed in just two of them, with parents of both children getting off without jail time, which only makes finding a solution to this predicament all the more urgent.
“I think I would draw the line at a place where there are serious health consequences for the child and efforts to work with the family have repeatedly failed.” Linda Spears, vice president of policy and public affairs for the Child Welfare League of America, explains for the publication. A structured plan of action that would be accountable to a court would also be necessary, Spears explains.
Still, Gray’s attorney argues his client did not fail in her attempts to keep tabs on Alexander’s diet: it was the boy who would sneak out to eat, or would deliberately cheat on his diet behind his mother’s back. Advocates for some kind of normative that would hold parents responsible for their children’s weight compare what Gray did to offering drugs to a child, the only difference being that she, for one, could have killed her own son with food, even if she did not really force-fed him.